My recommendation as a big fan of the series: Unless you´re really into Dungeon-Crawlers, start with the second game. The first one, while absolutely solid for it´s age, is outclassed by the second in every possible way.
To preface, the raidy series are among my favorite H-Games, and probably the first ones I genuinely had fun with gameplay wise.
It´s been almost 5 years since I played them the first time, and after losing my saves during the move to a new pc, I thought I´d replay them to see how they hold up for me.
And I have to say, Raidy 1 is exactly like I remember.
A rather shallow dungeon crawler with a completely unbalanced leveling system and a combat system that consists entirely of "attack, defend, run, use magic, heal". The crawling consists mostly of finding fake walls and occasionally some teleporters. The puzzles are simple and usually consist of having to find some clue on each floor to make the boss beatable.
But get this, one time you have to get 2 things, and at another time you don´t have to get anything. Truly masteful game design.
The scenes also REALLY show their age. The good shit is there, but every scene is like 5 lines total, and every scene outside of a boss encounter fells tacked on and unnecessary., just barely ruining the pure yuri main scenes. And while the foundation for the fun characters the series later puts the spotlight on is laid, in reality none of them have a personality, at least not in this game.
On the plus side,having to draw the map yourself is something I really enjoy. Especially on the floor with the many teleporters. If you don´t just look at a guide and have to trial and error your way through the dungeon, the level curve doesn´t requiremuch grinding at all.
At least until the final 2 levels, where the game fucking nosedives in quality.
Hope you like going through levels designed to have the most boring "walk in a straight line" design, enhanced by having to trial and error your way through a "puzzle", which is just a 1 in 4 chance of guessing the right option, than walkign through a corridor for 5 minutes to see if you guessed right. I did this 4 times.
The last level is even worse, relying entirely on having to guess where the fake walls are with clue to where because of the entirely symmetrical map layout. And you better hurry, the non-mitigated spell damage most of the enemies on this floor have will rob your of most of your healing no matter how well you saved up.
The final insult is the secret ending, which requires you losing to every boss in normal combat, outside of the scripted auto-losses. Reloading old saves for each boss doesn´t work either, the deaths must be in one playthrough for the game to register it.
On the bright side, when you know the map layout, the game is beatable in under 5 hours, I know that now.
Raidy 1 is not a good game. But it has good things about it, the sequel(s?) capitalizes on in a massive way. It is also really fucking old, and judging it by today´s standards is pretty unfair.
But that´s what you gotta do, so my recommendation:
The girls on the cover are bosses you beat and "punish" on your quest to defeat an evil demon enslaving women.
There, you know everything you need to know about Raidy 1, now go play Raidy 2, it´s a lot less shit.
To preface, the raidy series are among my favorite H-Games, and probably the first ones I genuinely had fun with gameplay wise.
It´s been almost 5 years since I played them the first time, and after losing my saves during the move to a new pc, I thought I´d replay them to see how they hold up for me.
And I have to say, Raidy 1 is exactly like I remember.
A rather shallow dungeon crawler with a completely unbalanced leveling system and a combat system that consists entirely of "attack, defend, run, use magic, heal". The crawling consists mostly of finding fake walls and occasionally some teleporters. The puzzles are simple and usually consist of having to find some clue on each floor to make the boss beatable.
But get this, one time you have to get 2 things, and at another time you don´t have to get anything. Truly masteful game design.
The scenes also REALLY show their age. The good shit is there, but every scene is like 5 lines total, and every scene outside of a boss encounter fells tacked on and unnecessary., just barely ruining the pure yuri main scenes. And while the foundation for the fun characters the series later puts the spotlight on is laid, in reality none of them have a personality, at least not in this game.
On the plus side,having to draw the map yourself is something I really enjoy. Especially on the floor with the many teleporters. If you don´t just look at a guide and have to trial and error your way through the dungeon, the level curve doesn´t requiremuch grinding at all.
At least until the final 2 levels, where the game fucking nosedives in quality.
Hope you like going through levels designed to have the most boring "walk in a straight line" design, enhanced by having to trial and error your way through a "puzzle", which is just a 1 in 4 chance of guessing the right option, than walkign through a corridor for 5 minutes to see if you guessed right. I did this 4 times.
The last level is even worse, relying entirely on having to guess where the fake walls are with clue to where because of the entirely symmetrical map layout. And you better hurry, the non-mitigated spell damage most of the enemies on this floor have will rob your of most of your healing no matter how well you saved up.
The final insult is the secret ending, which requires you losing to every boss in normal combat, outside of the scripted auto-losses. Reloading old saves for each boss doesn´t work either, the deaths must be in one playthrough for the game to register it.
On the bright side, when you know the map layout, the game is beatable in under 5 hours, I know that now.
Raidy 1 is not a good game. But it has good things about it, the sequel(s?) capitalizes on in a massive way. It is also really fucking old, and judging it by today´s standards is pretty unfair.
But that´s what you gotta do, so my recommendation:
The girls on the cover are bosses you beat and "punish" on your quest to defeat an evil demon enslaving women.
There, you know everything you need to know about Raidy 1, now go play Raidy 2, it´s a lot less shit.
